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Permalink Reply by Stefan Antonowicz on April 12, 2009 at 8:02am

Hi guys!

Great time yesterday - I'm nice an sore this morning, and last night I slept like I was dead. This is kind of an un-formatted dump of information, so I apologize in advance!

I've looked at the game in two "facets" that I thought were interesting - the Animal and the Route.

OVERALL

I think the social networking aspect Jane mentioned at the end is really cool; as I was walking away, I was wondering if we might have a social voting for difficulty rating (1-5 or whatever) on both the Animal that you've "spotted" and the Route you propose.

As a quick aside - this got me wondering about the efficacy of difficulty rating systems in terms, specifically, of health. I remember being in the 3rd grade when the "book club" came to town. There were a number of different books you could buy, and they each had a grade level next to them. I was really interested in the 6th grade books, but being in the 3rd grade I figured I had to buy the 3rd grade books. My disappointment was profound - they were dull and way too easy to read. In that sense, if you don't tell someone the difficulty of something they are physically attempting (barring white-water rapid ratings or mountain climbing ratings or ski-slope ratings and their ilk, of course), are they more likely to "go for it," or more likely to bow out? How about when you do it in the realm of a game? I don't know either way, I was just idly curious, but my first thought was the obvious-ness that some animals were more difficult than others, as evidenced when we challenged others to hunt an animal (the tough ones rose to the top). It's also interesting to me that there is a matrix of how tough an animal might be vs. their terrain. I think I can see how that would work in my mind's eye, where you pick either a Route or Animal and can see a list of its "difficulty" vs. the Animal or Route, respectively i.e. " on has a difficulty of ( * / 2 )"

ANIMALS

This might be the inner geek in me, but if you "propose" an animal, in addition to a socially voting/defined "coolness" rating, I'd like to see people be able to upload drawings/"photos"/etc. of the animal as well as be able to write a back-story for it (part of the coolness of the Monster Manual or Fiend Folio for D&D was reading the back story for them). I think it'd also be cool to indicate which "attribute" the animal uses the most. Strong arms? Great sprinter? Lots of endurance? When you do that, it'd give someone a good sense of what they'd get into if they choose to imitate the animal, or plot a route for it. So I could personally want to work on endurance one day, then my upper body the next, etc. and could pick an "animal workout" that suits me.

I was also curious about the need to track mental variables (like animal footprints) in terms of exercise. I personally hate running, a lot, but I realized today that part of my dislike for it is because it's me staring into space a) wondering when the pain will end and b) berating myself for getting so fat that I have to run in the first place. I like playing things like basketball much more, since there's lots of things going on and lots of things you have to mentally keep track of, then translate that into physical activity. I've lately seen the trend of exercise programs (Wii included) to have you physically track variables - trying to balance a hand on a medicine ball while you do a push-up, or balancing on a foot while you do a Russian Twist, and I'm guessing that these have been more successful in terms of physical gains (they seemed to be an outcropping from the resurgence of isometric/resistance exercises of the 90s, but I digress). Is the need to track a variable with your eyes/mind (football being thrown, basketball being passed, tracks on the ground) more effective than pounding things out on the treadmill? Again, no idea - just curious.

At any rate, that gave me the idea of intersecting tracks and trails in a competitive-type version of the game. You need to be clear when you define your animal about its track size, color, and appearance (and, like Jane said, if you're limited to 5-10 minutes to draw the trail it'll make the tracks naturally simple in nature [not more than 4 lines, for example]). I noticed as we ran people looking around frantically for the track, or losing the trail here and there. It would be neat if, in addition to discovery, you had to differentiate between 2+ different sets of tracks, as well.

ROUTES

I think the plotting of the GPS location of where you've spotted X animal is spectacular. It'd then be possible to either plot a route using further GPS coordinates, or you could use a "traveling salesman" type of algorithm to have the system auto-generate a route for you. For example, I could see someone logging into the website and saying something to the effect of:

"I live on 62nd Street in Queens, NY. I would like to work on my endurance. Plot me a route not greater than 2 miles."

And cross reference your Animal with Route and give you a great workout (just realized how great of an iPhone app that might be).

Anyway, that's what I've got so far! Great time, looking forward to the next one!

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Permalink Reply by Dav Flamerock on April 12, 2009 at 5:36pm

Some musings and thoughts from the Flamerock:

1. Regarding the routes: I think they are best when designed for a specific group of people. I don't really know enough about making routes yet, having not made one myself, but I plan on doing that with some east bay groups.
2. Regarding tracks: There are a multitude of ways to mark them. Jane simply marked them with chalk, but I thought I'd mention my plan for when I make a hurdle crab route (for example, this works for most species): Put a bunch of chalk on my hands and heels and then walk the course myself, allowing the chalk on my hands and feet to leave the trail itself. This also has the benefit of making the trail undeniably possible, as whoever laid it out beforehand has already done it.
3. Regarding the discovery of new creatures: PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN. We need a detailed analysis--pictures of the animal, pictures of its tracks, a video of someone trailing it, and an outline of how the creature functions (what are the rules it follows, what are its general habitats, what are its strengths and weaknesses*, etc) *This is based on Stefan's idea of putting creatures' strengths.
4. Um I don't have anything else at the moment, but I'm sure I'll think of other things to suggest.

/returns to creating documentation for hurdle crabs and salt-skinned shamblers

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Permalink Reply by CryptoZoologist on May 10, 2009 at 7:30pm

We've added a new page to help you organize your own CryptZoo chases wherever you live!
http://cryptozoo.ning.com/page/supplies-1

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Permalink Reply by Jo Jordan on May 13, 2009 at 1:35am

?? I don't really get the level 2. So two teams meet - is that a race or they just show each other their moves?

Great game. I started some low level parkour a few weeks ago and there is nothing like some impromptu hopscotch to arose comment in an English village.

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Permalink Reply by Max Bell on May 14, 2009 at 5:19am

Stefan Antonowicz said:

I'd like to see people be able to upload drawings/"photos"/etc. of the animal as well as be able to write a back-story for it (part of the coolness of the Monster Manual or Fiend Folio for D&D was reading the back story for them). I think it'd also be cool to indicate which "attribute" the animal uses the most. Strong arms? Great sprinter? Lots of endurance?

Someone could try making art of some of the creatures with the Spore Creature Creator. I think you can download a free trial of it. I would, but I had the game on my PC but that computer broke lol, and now my laptop probably can't run Spore.

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